Michael Foot Quotes

Politicians live in little worlds of their own and imagine these are the universe.

Think of it! A second chamber selected by the Whips. A seraglio of eunuchs.

A Royal Commission is a broody hen sitting on a china egg.

Most liberties have been won by people who broke the law.

People can say what they want in the Labour Party.

How long will it be before the cry goes up: "Let's kill all the judges"?

He's passed from rising hope to elder statesman without any intervening period whatsoever.

I have never been in favour of expelling people from the Labour Party.

We are not here in this world to find elegant solutions, pregnant with initiative, or to serve the ways and modes of profitable progress. No, we are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. That is our only certain good and great purpose on earth, and if you ask me about those insoluble economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their initiative, I would answer 'To hell with them.' The top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do.

You can have a wages policy imposed by mass unemployment.

I certainly think that a Labour Government will have to have effective powers to control the outflow of capital.

I've been on the left of the Party since I joined it about 1934 and I haven't seen much reason for altering... I have always been a strong libertarian both inside the Labour Party and outside... what I want to seek to do over a period of course is to establish a Socialist society.

Men of power have no time to read; yet the men who do not read are unfit for power.

A speech from Ernest Bevin on a major occasion had all the horrific fascination of a public execution. If the mind was left immune, eyes and ears and emotions were riveted.

The only man I knew who could make a curse sound like a caress.

All is fair in love and war and Parliamentary procedure.

Of course my father was a great influence on me. He taught me how to read.